Father's Day - Filmmaker in person

In his latest film, set in Rwanda, in a COVID-19 context of confinement which, almost by necessity, invites an inward-looking gaze, Kivu Ruhorahoza takes us on an exploration of masculinity through one of its most institutionalized forms: fatherhood. In the film, he figures Rwandan societal debates around the interrogation of fatherhood in a post-genocidal context, one in which the hands that held the machetes and struck, the voices that aided and abetted, the gestures that betrayed and denounced were primarily those of men. This crisis of confidence in masculinity leads the director to place hopes for the future of the social polity squarely in the hands of women and children. Through three parallel stories of failed masculinity (failure to provide, to assume responsibility, to grieve properly, and the failing of humanity itself by a génocidaire), it falls on wives and daughters to potentially fork the path ahead, to create a new culture of conviviality by helping heal the deep wounds of the psyche engendered by male infamy.